


Quarto's extravaganza of tumblr fics

by Quarto



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-13 06:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 10,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11178732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quarto/pseuds/Quarto
Summary: A collection of ficlets and prompt replies originally posted on my tumblr.  Chapter titles will contain specific ships.





	1. Soulmates (John/Mary)

It doesn’t mostly make it into the books, but soulmarks can actually make things more awkward, if more efficient.  One time I went to a job interview.  The woman at the desk had blonde hair and leaf-green eyes, and smiled sweetly up at me, and I made a mental note to try and get her number after the meeting.  I said, “Hi, I’m John Watson, I’ve got an interview with-”

I stopped, then, because she was gawping at me, and then she said, “Oh, fuck me, you’re kidding.  This is today?  Oh Christ, I don’t even have any makeup on!”

She paused, replayed her last words, and asked, “Is that seriously what’s on your wrist?”

My mouth had gone dry, but I said, “Um, yeah, it is, actually.”

“Right.  Brilliant.  Super suave, Mary.  You’re the new GP candidate?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll be meeting with Doctor Abbotsford.  Down the hall, second door on the right, she’s expecting you.  I’m going to go drown myself in the sink now.”

“Can we get coffee afterwards?”

“Probably!” she said, stalking out of the office.


	2. The birth of baby Watson (Mary/John, gen)

Eight minutes later (would have allegedly been fifteen by cab) they burst into the maternity floor at the Royal London to find Mary smiling sunnily at them.  She was standing flanked by Janine and a nervous midwife, and not looking as though she needed John’s help _at all_.  Except-

“WOOT!” Mary shouted loudly, ignoring the shushing the midwife was trying to give her, “It’s J-dubs and Shezza!  Now the party can fucking begin!.”

Though first impressions could occasionally be incorrect.  

Mary was making the goat’s head sign with her right hand and giggling, which did sort of seem to merit further investigation.  John cocked an eye at the midwife, who hastened to say, “The anaesthesiologist is in theatre, so we thought we’d give her just a _leetle_ bit of intramuscular pethidine to take the edge off and… well, obviously she’s one of the patients who has a _leetle_ bit of euphoria-

“ _Hells_ yes,” Mary chimed in, “I feel _good_ , man.  I’m going to have, like, eighteen more babies.  This is awesome.”

“It’s not at all unheard of.  And apparently she’s had unusual reactions to opioids in the past.”

“That’s right,” Mary said helpfully, pointing at Sherlock, “When he roofied me a few weeks ago I. Tripped. _Balls._ ”

“What?” asked the midwife, looking confusedly between John and Mary.

“What.” stated Janine, staring directly at Sherlock.

It could have been a rather awkward moment but Mary saved it by gripping her belly, moaning, and stumbling into John’s arms with a sobbing, “Gorblimey that ‘urts.  These drugs are _worfless_.”

“ _And_ she’s gone Cockney,” Sherlock muttered, “I think it’s time I took Janine for a coffee.”

Janine said “Wait, what?” but he’d already taken her by the elbow and was escorting her down the hallway. Behind them, they could hear Mary asking in a tear-filled voice, “Oh, John, why do you smell like shit?”

“We were being held prisoner in the sewers.”

“Oh, right.  That makes sense.”

It honestly sort of did, by their standards.


	3. Revenge (Mary/Janine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt by gettingovergreta, AU where Mary was never an assassin but she and Janine collaborate to kill Magnussen, who runs a website that posts revenge porn, after he threatens Mary

They watched the video together.  It had been an all-too-brief moment of stolen sweetness, now tainted by the knowledge of other eyes on them.  When it ended, Janine let her phone fall to the ground.  She couldn’t make eye contact with Mary, at all, and her throat felt like it was going to close up.  


“Oh, sweetheart, no, no no no, don’t cry.  Come here.”

Janine let herself sink into Mary’s arms, apologizing over and over again.

“Stop saying you’re sorry.  It’s not your fault.  As far as I’m concerned,” Mary said, “He can publish it.  All it is is proof that once upon a time I had a life.  And a waistline.”

She gestured at the gravid orb of her belly.  

“Obviously I’ll have to keep you away from John for the next six months or he _will_ ask you if you’re game for a threesome but your boss can’t hurt me.  So don’t cry.  This will all work out.”

Mary smiled at her, and Janine felt herself smiling back, the way Mary had always made her smile.

“I mean,” Mary continued, “On your behalf, clearly he has to die.  We’ll work that out, okay?  So don’t cry.”


	4. Untitled (Sherlock/Molly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post TFP

So Molly.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s not like it’s-”

“Shut. Up."

“Yeah, no.  Not going to.  You have to realize that-”

“I realize that I want you to stop _talking_.”

“You…you, Sherlock, are at the good point.  Right now.  You need to recognize that.  Where all the bullshit of real life doesn’t matter and you can just be him and her and be _happy_.”

“I would _ruin her life_.”

“Probably.  But you can try it and it won’t be as bad as you think.  Because for whatever stupid reason she loves you."

 


	5. Sherlock Holmes's Diary (Sherlock/Molly, Sherlock/Janine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TragicSpinster!Lock (a genre I invented and am the sole practitioner of) based off "Bridget Jones's Diary."

16 March

Attended ghastly dinner party at the Watson’s. John has gone completely smug married ever since he managed to convince a moderately presentable ex-assassin to tolerate his company. He sat afterwards with his hand on Mary’s belly and said with absolutely zero sense of irony, “I mean, you don’t really feel like a man, do you, until you’re a husband and a father?”

All the rest of them agreed, of course. Nobody pointed out the obvious fact that his experience of fatherhood, thus far, has consisted of three minutes of penetrative sex and attendance at a few obstetrician’s appointments. I’m pretty sure Mary was thinking it, though.

Lestrade then asked me, “How about you, Sherlock? Anybody on the horizon?”

“Gosh, well, a pathology specialist registrar just stood me up after weeks of flirting with me. And occasionally a beautiful Irish PA comes over and molests me when she’s been drinking and wasn’t able to pull,” I did not say, though I was tempted.

Instead I smiled thinly and said, “I do keep busy. But I’m mainly focused on the work. In fact just yesterday I finally cracked the case of-” 

“Oh, you career lads,” Anderson interrupted me, “Can’t put it off forever, you know. Sperm quality really starts to drop off once you hit forty and then where are you?”


	6. I may be an idiot, but I'm not stupid (Sherlock/Molly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble prompt by mizjoely

The knock (hammering) woke Sherlock at three in the morning, and when he opened the door, Molly was there, grinning blearily with one arm slung over Sally Donovan and Mary Watson’s respective shoulders.

“She wanted to come see you,” Mary singsonged at him as they decanted the intoxicated pathologist into his flat.

“I _really_ fancy him. He has a lovely bottom,” Molly whispered loudly to nobody in particular. Sherlock glared at the other women and threw them out of his flat once they all got Molly into his bedroom.

“How much did you have to drink?” he asked, going onto one knee to help Molly out of her shoes, which were giving her trouble.

“All of them,” she said, after consideration.

“You’re really not very good at this sort of maths, are you?”

“Hey!” she slurred, “I will have you know, Sherlock Holmes, that while I may be an idiot, I am NOT stupid.”

Sherlock stared down at her for a minute to see if anything more rational came out, and then contented himself with, “You’re not an idiot at all.”

“Mary made me do _shots_ ,” Molly complained, “And I think she’s got a hollow leg. Do you want to shag me?”

“At the moment I’m actually a bit concerned you might die, so no thank you.”

“But your bottom’s _so_ nice,” Molly pleaded, “I would bite it with my teeth.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock said, wryly but unheard, because she had passed out. Sherlock sighed, switched on the bedside lamp, and got out the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine to read. It was probably good, on balance, that they had decided to do the hen night a week before the actual date.


	7. You're so clingy.  I love it. (Sherlock/Molly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble prompt by rooneykmara

“I really wasn’t expecting this about dating you,” Molly mused over Sherlock’s head, carding her fingers absently through his curls.

“What’s that?”

“You’re so clingy. I love it.”

“I do not _cling_. I wanted to lie down and your lap was in my way. It’s purely practical.”

“Uh huh. And yesterday at the crime scene when you made me get under your coat with you, what was in the way then?”

“You were cold,” Sherlock argued, “Inadequate climate control is the single greatest cause of inefficency and lost productivity, and I needed your assistance.”

“Because I was so efficient with six feet of consulting detective wrapped around me.”

“Six one,” he corrected her.

“You always want to hold hands with me.”

“Keeps you from wandering off when I get distracted.”

“Oh, whatever, Clingy. I think you probably just like me rather a lot.”

“I rather do,” Sherlock agreed, “And there’s another advantage to being in close physical proximity to you.”

“What’s that?” Molly asked, before his expression removed any doubt on the subject.


	8. I let you win, you know (John/Mary)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble prompt by geekmama

“I let you win, you know.”

Mary frowned at John, and asked, “Did you?”

“‘Course. I fancy you. I’m not going to show you up by beating you at cards.”

“Aww,” she smiled, “That’s really sweet, actually.”

“I mean, if I’d wanted to win, I’d have not let you count those,” he gestured at the scarf and single earring laying on the table, “As clothes. They’re _accessories_.”

“That’s true.”

“And we’d have played hold-em instead of Omaha. That’s where the skill really comes in. Omaha’s pretty much all about luck.”

“You’re right. I absolutely don’t believe that you have a hard time with statistics and can’t tell when I’m bluffing. However-”

Mary’s smile got wider and wickeder.

“I _did_ win. So I’m afraid the pants _do_ need to come off.”


	9. You're not going out dressed like that? (Sherlock/Molly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble prompt by geekmama

Sherlock glared suspiciously at Molly as she applied her lipstick in the tiny mirror near the door.

“You’re not going out dressed like that, surely?”

Molly looked down at herself, but saw nothing alarming.

“Like what?”

“All… alluring,” he said, waving a hand vaguely at her, “It’s meant to be a girls’ night out, not you going on the pull.”

Molly looked down again at her sensible brown trousers, ruffled pink blouse, and cherry-print cardigan.

“ _This_ … is what you find alluring? I _really_ used to be off on the wrong track with you, wasn’t I?”

“Cherries are extremely sexual fruit,” Sherlock snapped defensively.

“And drink one is going to be dedicated to forgetting you said that,” Molly said, popping the lid back on her lipstick, “You’re cute when you’re all worried, but I think probably the men of London will be able to resist the tempetation implicit in my wearing produce. But play your cards right and when I get back you can have a look at my mangoes.”


	10. You can't eat solids, only liquids until Thursday (John/Mary)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble prompt by mizjoely

“Nurse, I’m hungry. I want a sandwich”

The nurse… he didn’t know how he knew she was a nurse, she wasn’t dressed as one, but possibly some of the deductions thing was finally happening for him… hurried over to his side and said, “You can’t eat solids, only liquids until Thursday morning.”

John considered this, which seemed more difficult than normal, and finally had to ask, “And right now it’s…?”

“Wednesday afternoon.”

“Oh, fuck me, I’ve got to get my teeth out today.”

“You already did,” the nurse said, smiling faintly at him, “That’s why we’re here, remember?”

“I’m pretty sure,” John said patronizingly, since the woman seemed a bit dim, “That I’d remember some quack sawing on my mouth. You can’t get things like that past me. I’ve got special training at… noticing.”

“You’re funny when you’re on Versed, did you know that?” she replied, filling a glass with water and offering it to him. John had a bit of trouble with it… for some reason it was hard for his lips to seal to the glass properly, and the nurse had to help him out.

“And you’ve got really good breasts. Bouncy. You should come out on a date with me some night,” John said, looking down at them. _Super smooth_ , he thought.

Or possibly said out loud, because blonde-nurse-with-good-breasts raised an eyebrow at him and answered back, “And maybe a bit of pentothal too, hmm? Sorry, but I’m a married woman.”

“Oh,” John said, sadly, “Well I don’t mind if you don’t.”

“Oddly enough, no I don’t. Let’s get you home, Doctor Watson.”


	11. Trash the Dress (Sherlock/Molly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An incident of self prompting... which yes, I know, it's normal, healthy, and natural, and all young women do it as they discover their... creative identity. Still awkward to admit to. Anyway tumblr user benedict-the-cumbercookie posted this beautiful edit:
> 
> http://benedict-the-cumbercookie.tumblr.com/post/113450587482/fun-with-ps-x-y
> 
> And I had the thought: "Basically that one time Sherlock and Molly did a “Trash the Dress” wedding photoshoot and the photographer got… distracted."

“Jesus,” Mary said, staring at the video.

“I _know,_ ” Molly replied.

“I mean this is basically just porn.  Do you always take your clothes off like you’re angry with them, leggy?”

Sherlock replied, “I am _ignoring_ you, Mrs. Watson,” and kept on typing something into his laptop.

“She… she slowed the clips down, didn’t she?  And she sepia toned them!  And you were _there_ for this, Molly?”

“Oh, yes.  Standing two feet away in Vera Bleeding Wang.  Not that you can tell, because I don’t appear in a _single_ shot.”

Sherlock stopped his furious typing and said, “Are you _still_ on about that?  It _wasn’t_ your actual wedding gown, you didn’t _pay_ for it, and as we discussed at the time the entire thing was a _brilliant_ charade for me to get closer to the photographer and determine whether her alibi at the time of the murder would have been valid.  Which, just incidentally, totally worked.”

“There were eels, Sherlock.  _Eels_.”

“ _And_ I figured out motive.  She is not, as she claims, strictly homosexual-”

“Clearly,” Mary snorted.

“-thus enabling romantic jealousy as a driver for that poisoning.”

“Great.  Not gay, murderer, incredibly unprofessional about her job.  I should probably ask her on a date,” Molly moaned.

“We’re really two-for-two on murderous wedding photographers, aren’t we?” Mary mused.

“Statistical anomaly,” Sherlock proclaimed, “As a profession it’s no more than one in thirty.”

“Seriously?”

“That estimate may be on the high end,” he conceded.

“I looked _so_ flipping pretty and I stood in cold water up to my arse for _two hours_ and I’ve _nothing_ to show for it,” Molly sulked from the corner of the sofa.

“Apart from, you know, the whole justice for the murdered bit.  And you were _beautiful_ , not pretty.”

Molly sat up and looked over at Mary, who was pursing her lips together to keep a laugh down.  Then she looked over at Sherlock, who was sitting very still and turning red.

“Anyway, do have to dash,” Mary said into the sudden silence, “Rosie needs… her vaccinations.  Yes.  Very time-sensitive jabs.  Next time you do this, Sherlock, bring John instead, I like him in a morning suit.  Or getting out of it.  Ta.”

She was already texting before the door had closed behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hobbitsdoitbetter wrote a follow-on ficlet here:  
> https://hobbitsdoitbetter.tumblr.com/post/162024874068/love-yellow-door-glitterkitty4ever


	12. Have you ever lied to me? (John/Mary)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt by mizjoely: 22. I don’t know why I married you. 23. Have you ever lied to me? 24. If I trip over one more of your shoes, I’m throwing them all away. 25. Aren’t you supposed to be the adult? Any of them or a combo - my additional challenge is to use the same prompt(s) for Warstan and Sherlolly?

“I’m starting to think our marriage counselor may be a quack, John.”

He laughed, because he kind of agreed with her (and because they’d had a bit of wine while doing this week’s homework assignment.)  The concept was solid… “get to know the person you married,” but the execution was flawed.

John drew another card from the box.

“Oh, my God.  It’s ‘Have you ever lied to me?’”

“No, never,” Mary said innocently, taking another drink.

“Assassin living under assumed name.”

“Accidentally seduced by secret third Holmes sibling in her clever disguise of _pretty girl on bus_.”

“Those trousers you got last week _do_ make your ass look big.”

“You BASTARD,” Mary cackled, taking a couch cushion from behind her head and throwing it at him, “I KNEW IT.  I don’t know why I married you.”

“It’s cause I’ve got a massive penis and the stamina of a racehorse, obviously.”

“You might not realize this, John, but most horse races take less than three minutes,” Mary said, waggling her eyebrows.

“Whatever, you love it,” he replied, finishing off his glass, “Want another?”

“Please.”

Mary took the next card from the box as he was refilling their glasses, and called out to him, “What were your formative sexual experiences?”

“Is that-” he tripped and barely avoided spilling the wine, “Okay, if I trip over your shoes again I’m throwing them out.  Is that seriously something healthy couples are supposed to know about each other? Because I’m actually fine with taking that one to the grave.”

Mary shrugged and extended a hand for her wine, “It’s what it says.”

“Shit.  Okay, well… I guess I was twenty-one.”

“Wait, hold on. Twenty one?”

“Yeah.”

“But you were always so-“ Mary hesitated.

“So what?” John asked.

“Well I’m trying to think of a nicer word than slutty-“

“Since I’m a man I believe “master cocksman” might be in order,” he said, sniggering.

“Hah, hah, aren’t you supposed to be the adult in this relationship?”

“Where did you get that idea?  But to answer your question I got a late start because I didn’t figure out where I was going wrong with women until the Army which wasn’t until the next year. Also I was my same height, but forty pounds skinnier and covered in spots.”

“Gotcha.”

“Anyway, she was at medical school with me, we were both _apocalyptically_ drunk, it happened in the bathroom at a house party, took about three seconds, and we weren’t ever quite able to look one another in the eye again.”

Mary shrugged, “I’m trying to think if that really explains much about you for me but I don’t believe it does.”

“Well, was _your_ first time particularly amazing?”

“I wouldn’t call it that, but it was meaningful, at least.”

“Okay, you go.”

Mary thought about it, swirling the wine in her glass.    
  
“I was fifteen.  No, oh my- I was still technically _fourteen_.  Good Lord, that’s horrifying, I can’t believe I did that.  He was older, and went to the Catholic school instead of my school so we didn’t really know one another, but we lived on the same street.  That summer he was a counselor and I was a junior counselor at a baseball day camp.  He drove me out there and back an hour each way every day, and we hit it off, and ultimately I surrendered my virtue to him in the back seat of his mother’s Ford Aerostar.”

“What happened afterwards?”

“Nothing particular. We split up when he went off to college the next year, and despite his being the tenth grade love of my life I really almost never thought about him again.  Though he made it to the majors later and did five seasons with the Oakland A’s.”

“Mary, are you-“ John hesitated, “Are you American?”

She blinked, and said, slowly, “Um, well, sort of, though not really legally anymore.  I mean, I _was_ born there.  I thought you figured that out given the CIA affiliation and everything-“

“I just-“ John hadn’t been expecting this light little game to get into deeper waters, “No, I hadn’t. I don’t mind, though.”

“Good.  That’s… good.”

They sat in silence, looking into their wineglasses, until eventually John said, “I’ve never been with an American girl before.”

“You and I have been together hundreds of times.  We’ve had a baby,” Mary said dryly.

“Nope,” John declared, “Doesn’t count if I wasn’t aware of it.  Care to get me my fourth continent?”

Mary shrugged, “Oh, why not?”


	13. Have you ever lied to me? (Sherlock/Molly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt by mizjoely: 22. I don’t know why I married you. 23. Have you ever lied to me? 24. If I trip over one more of your shoes, I’m throwing them all away. 25. Aren’t you supposed to be the adult? Any of them or a combo - my additional challenge is to use the same prompt(s) for Warstan and Sherlolly?

He was walking but not running because running would make him look suspicious to the cranky gunmen watching him.  Then Molly Hooper appeared on the horizon like a glimmering beacon of… like a thirtysomething woman who was reliably helpful and had a store of useful medical knowledge, and nothing else.

Sherlock needed reliable helpfulness at the moment, so he dipped his head down to her ear and whispered, “Molly, I apologize, but I need to make a _very_ dramatic scene here and so I’m afraid I will have to-”

The slap made his ears ring.  And Sherlock had to admire the intensity with which Molly screeched, “You… _filth_.  I don’t know why I married you. I could deal with the boozing and the gambling but now… the _whores_?  Rot in hell, you bastard.  Rot…in… _hell_.”

She was _wasted_ in pathology if this was a sample of her acting talents.  It hadn’t been Sherlock’s plan, but it worked. They were able to walk easily out of the shopping center, her haranguing him all the way, him glum and hangdog and just incidentally carrying a stolen microfilm cartridge whose contents would send three members of Parliament to prison.

* * *

The next occasion began with a:

-Sherlock

-Sherlock help me

-Sherlock I am trapped on a date with the most boring man in the universe

-I thought the worst I’d get off Tinder would be a load of pictures of willies but I WAS WRONG

-Seriously he’s in the toilets right now and committing seppuku with the butter knife sounds more appealing than spending two more minutes listening to him talk

-You owe me, Sherlock Holmes

-Helped you fake your death

-Give you body parts

-Let you kip in my bed when John was angsting up your flat

-Created a scene so you could bust up that spy ring

-You ruin a ton of my dates on accident so I think it’s only fair that you help me escape this one on purpose

-All right, all right.  On my way.  -SH

The restaurant was white-tableclothed and posh, entirely the wrong sort of place to bring Molly who would much rather have a meat pie and a pint in a place where she could relax… odd, that he’d such a clear idea of her dating preferences.  It was impressive what you could find in the corners of the mind palace.

Sherlock strode directly up to the table and asked, “Molly, have you ever lied to me?”

“Um-”

“Because I lied to _you_ ,” he said, kneeling at her feet and taking her hand, “I _don’t_ want an open relationship.  I’ve been- _such_ a fool, such a bloody arrogant fool.  All I want is you.  Please, please come back to me.”

Molly’s lip wobbled, her eyes filled with tears, and she burst out with, “Oh, of _course_ , darling.”

Because it seemed like the appropriate follow-on, Sherlock scooped Molly out of her chair and carried her out of the restaurant, her arms about his neck.

On the sidewalk outside, he commented mildly, “I may have overdone that a bit.”

“Ya think?” Molly replied.

“No, specifically… it turns out that your tawdry Tinder hookup was actually Mary’s ex, David.  He’s terrified of me.  I could probably have just grinned at him.”

“Oh.  Well, never mind, at least he’ll definitely never call me again, which was the goal.  You can put me down, you know.”

He did, quickly, though with a bit of regret.  She’d made a rather pleasant armful.

* * *

Public scenes were sort of becoming their thing, Sherlock realized, while he and Molly loudly sniped at one another as they rode in a double-decker tour bus through Whitechapel.

“And another thing,” she groused, poking him in the chest with one artificial-nailed fingertip, “If I trip over one more of your shoes I’m throwing them all out, you slob.”

“Go right ahead, throw them out.  Just like you threw out my hopes and dreams and will to live,” Sherlock replied, tugging the Yankees cap down to hide his face.

He wasn’t sure quite why they had gone with the offensively stereotypical New York accents, probably Mary’s influence.  But it seemed to be doing the trick because the mark, a seemingly normal adulterer who had actually become somewhat interesting when he turned out to also be smuggling Iraqi antiquities into the UK, rolled his eyes at them and got off at the next stop.  Just  as they had wanted him to.  Several other customers also opted for the “hop-off” option, which hadn’t technically been the goal but at least gave them more room on the top.

Sherlock sent a text to John, who had been trailing after them on his bicycle:

-He got off at the Ten Bells - SH

-Roger that, I see him.  He’s heading down Commercial Street.  I’ll keep you posted.  

-No more than thirty minutes following him, mind, then swap with Mary.  We can’t get made on this one. -SH

-Actually not my first time tailing a suspect, Sherlock.  

Sherlock put the phone into the pocket of his jeans and looked over at Molly, who was ignoring the fascinated looks of the other passengers on the bus as she removed her fluffy blonde wig.  

“We’ve got an hour or so until we’re up again,” he said, “I’m thinking we can be lost holidayers from Scotland.  You can hide a lot behind a map.”

“Aww,” Molly pouted, “It’s so much more fun when we get to be dramatic.”

And it was fun, Sherlock was surprised to realize, riding on this ridiculous tourist attraction in a stupid disguise and letting John and Mary actually go solve the case… because he was with Molly.  When had that happened?

* * *

“Molly I think that you should be my girlfriend,” he blurted.

Molly glanced around Baker Street, presumably looking for listening devices because then she took a deep breath and declaimed, “You’re only saying that because I’m dying of _cancer._ ”

“No, no, stop it, we aren’t doing a bit.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, pursing up her lips in that way she did when she was concentrating, “What brought that on?”

“It’s fairly obvious, I should think.  The desire for an amiable, sympathetic companion with whom to share my time and interests.”

“So basically you want… exactly what we’ve been doing for the last six months, but with sex.”

“Very mature, Molly, aren’t you supposed to be the adult here?  Yes, with sex.  Though ideally less publicly and noisily than we’ve been doing the rest of our recent activities.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Molly said thoughtfully, “I’ve got a few ideas in that regard-” before Sherlock interrupted her forcefully.  

She made a very pleasant armful indeed.


	14. A few things to say (Mary & Sherlock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From an anon prompt: Now I kinda want a fic were Mary and Sherlock were friends pre series and Sherlock asks her to take care of John while he's "dead". And when he comes back he's bemused that he matchmade them without even trying. Then he ships it super hard. 
> 
> Note that this ficlet isn't lighthearted like the others.

He watched her unlock the door to her flat, before saying from the shadows, “How’s being dead working out for you, Rose?”

 She tensed, and asked quietly, “How did you find me?”

 “Mycroft had a tracking implant installed in your left buttock when you were getting stitched up after Budapest.”

 Her eyes widened in horror, and her hand subconsciously started slipping around her left hip, before she frowned, and said, “Oh you big fibber.”

 “Spotted you in Oxford Street the other day,” he relented, “I’d say it was a coincidence but the universe is rarely so lazy.”

 Mary chuckled.

 “Really?  They happen to me all the time.  Come in out of the cold, you twerp.”

* * *

Of all the people to follow her out of her old life into her new one, Sherlock Holmes, junkie genius brother of her ex-boss, would have been the very last one she’d have predicted.  But it was nice, knowing someone you didn’t have to hide the first thirty-odd years of your life from… and she quite enjoyed having him about, especially now that he wasn’t high _all the time_.  

Miraculously on this occasion the rehab seemed to have actually worked.  Sherlock was an approximation of a healthy adult, just a twitchy one, and was starting to build a life for himself outside of big brother’s watchful eye.  He would pop by occasionally, eat all her food, criticize the rare men in her life (“the reason you’re bored with him is that he’s boring, move on”) and tell her about his adventures.

He was even, carefully, making friends of his very own… a detective inspector who let him consult on cases.  An elderly former client who liked to mother him.  A pathologist who gave him body parts (Something about the way Sherlock got sort of high-pitched and huffy when he talked about _her_ made Mary spend half an hour googling.  As she’d suspected, Molly Hooper _was_ quite a pretty woman.)  And then someone _particularly_ special.

 “He shot a man for me, Rose!  We’d barely known each other a day.”

 “Really?  That’s-”

 Scary.  Even by her standards.

 “Nice,” Mary said, eventually.  

 And that’s how John Watson, at least as an idea, first came into her life.

* * *

Mary Morstan lived alone.  She was always friendly but intentionally made no friends, choosing quiet and solitude over the risks that came with intimacy.  It sucked, honestly, but given that the last people she loved had been betrayed to their deaths she thought it was for the best.  But the fact that he was one of the only people she really had to care about was probably why she took it quite so hard when Sherlock died.

He’d called her, right before.  The connection was bad, and she could barely make out Sherlock’s crackling voice when he said, “Ro- Mary.  Mary.  I need you to do something for me.  John is in danger. -gunman-”

She asked him, “Sherlock, what’s wrong?  Are you in trouble? Where are you?”

“-trouble.  Save him.  I need you to save him.  Save John Watson.”

The line went dead, and when she called him back he didn’t answer.  The next she heard of Sherlock Holmes, he had fallen to his death off the roof of Barts hospital.

* * *

She’d cried, of course.  And then she’d got the hell on with it, and went out to Save John Watson.  It didn’t turn out to be all that difficult for someone with her skillset: the gunman Sherlock had warned her about was an excellent sniper but a really shit covert operative.  Mary was able to identify him by the simple expedient of spending an hour tracking the grieving doctor as he went numbly about the funeral planning.

Twenty-four hours after _that_ the gunman was in a shallow grave in the Savernake forest near Axford, and that should have been it…  

Except John had just looked so sad, and Mary really didn’t have any other friends, and neither did he.  It would be a comfort to share grief with someone, even if he didn’t technically _know_ it was shared.

Forging nurse’s credentials was easy, although her recently-discovered ethics made her apply for an administrative position rather than one where she’d actually be expected to look after sick people.  She smiled her best “Mary” smile and did her research before the interview, so she got the job.

* * *

She woke up in John’s bed with no clothes on and the man himself, technically her boss and now her… something else, Mary wasn’t quite sure what yet but it was _exciting_ … snoring beside her.

 _That_ had escalated quickly.

* * *

Sherlock came back from the dead in batshit insane and melodramatic fashion, as was his MO.  Mary was tempted to punch him but John took care of that for her.

They stood together, Sherlock staunching the blood dribbling from his nose, while John tried to hail a cab, and Mary asked mildly, “So being dead didn’t quite work out for you, hm?”

“It did for _you_ , apparently,” he snipped at her, “Really, you and John?”

“Yes, me and John.”

“You two really…” and he laced the fingers of his hands together in a gesture that was simultaneously completely innocent and the most obscene thing Mary had ever seen.

“ _Yes,_ that’s included.  We’re going to get married.”

“And he doesn’t know?”

“No.”

“Is that… a _good_ way,” Sherlock asked hesitantly, “To conduct a relationship?”

“No, it’s not.  But it’s the only way he’ll have me, and… Sherlock, _please,_ you can’t tell him _._ ”  

“Of course,” he smiled down at her, “You’re my friend.  You’re both my _friends_.  I’m _glad_ this happened.”

He sounded so contented at that simple fact that Mary risked touching him (always tricky and could make him upset and prickly), just enough to brush her fingers over the back of his hand.

 John called for her.  Mary murmured, “ _I’m_ glad you’re back. And I’ll talk him round” and went.

* * *

“Oh, Sherlock, if you take one more step I swear I will kill you.”

“No, Mrs. Watson, you won’t,” Sherlock said, with absolute faith and confidence in her.

Mary, knowing exactly what hell this would entitle her to, pulled the trigger.

* * *

She visited him in hospital, afterwards.

“I understand why you did it,” Sherlock said, briefly.

“And I understand why you told him the truth about me,” Mary replied with a sigh, “Look at how understanding we both are.”

“It was _necessary_ , Rose,” he said, urgently, “You can’t do this without my help, and I can’t do it without _his_ help.”

“Do what?”

Sherlock _smiled_.  “I’m going to save Mary Watson, of course.  It’s my favourite thing to do.”

* * *

It was so good for a while, and then it all went wrong.  If her story was ever told, that was how it would be summed up. 

She had been shot before, twice.  A spectacular flesh wound in the upper left thigh, and a deep crease in her scalp, not visible unless she parted her hair the wrong way.  Both of those hurt like hell.  This one didn’t hurt at all, and that’s how Mary knew it would be the one that killed her.  Even the shortness of breath wasn’t all that alarming.

A life that could be counted in minutes turned out to be so much simpler than one that had decades left to run.  There were only a few important things left that she needed to say.

Rosamund looked up at her friend Sherlock where he stood above her, and gasped, “I _so_ liked you.  Did I ever say?”

“Yes.  Yes, you did.”


	15. First Christmas (John/Mary)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a post by hobbitsdoitbetter on tumblr. https://hobbitsdoitbetter.tumblr.com/post/168411351758/warstan-headcanon

John woke up.  In agony, big spikes of it shooting through his head and gut.  And also in a strange bed, in a strange flat… a small studio, decorated in quiet shades of blue instead of his own flat’s sad-bachelor chic.

There was a cat sitting on his chest.  

And a woman, pretty and blonde, wearing pyjamas, who waved at him from her seat on the the nearby sofa and said, “Back in the land of the living, are we?”

Fucking hell.  He’d pulled for the first time in  _months_  and he didn’t even recall it?  He smiled at her tentatively, sat up on his elbows (dislodging the cat), and said, “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“So, this is a bit awkward, but did we…”

The pretty woman frowned, and asked tremulously, “You… you don’t remember it?”

“Um-”

“But, you called me a love goddess, a magnificent siren luring men to their doom!  I’d never known such… such  _passion_!”

John noticed, then, that he was still fully dressed apart from his shoes.

“We were going to call our first baby Christian, if it was a boy, and Margaret for a girl,” she wailed, flinging herself on her back and making melodramatic blubbing sounds.

“Right,” John said, “You’re messing with me.”

“Full marks,” the woman said, giggling at her own joke as she sat up again, “You passed out at the office holiday party and then I won you at cards.  Saved you from the proverbial fate worse than death, incidentally.”

* * *

“Maaaare!” Melissa called out in her air-raid siren of a voice.  Mary  _hated_  that nickname.  “Mary” was two bloody syllables and it really shouldn’t need to be shortened into something that was just coincidentally what you call a female horse.

“Come and play  _poker_ , Mare!” Melissa shrieked, “Two handed suuuuucks.  And we’ve got a  _wonderful_ prize.”

Mary had been thinking about calling it a night, frankly.  This sort of thing really wasn’t her scene.  But Melissa was gesturing at a man, ash-blond head resting in his folded arms, asleep on the table with an empty Old Fashioned glass clutched in one hand.  Curious, she came over.

“Who’s he?” she asked.

“Doctor Watson,” Melissa said, “The new guy.  Just started last week.”

“Doctor  _Hotson_ ,” Tony giggled slurrily, “Smol but sexy.”

Mary frowned at her co-workers.

“What exactly are you two planning to do with him, if you win?”

“Go through his mobile and text his girlfriends,” Melissa responded.

“Draw a dick onniz face wif Sharpie,” Tony replied, after thinking about it.

Mary sighed.  It  _would_ count as a good deed, she supposed.  Every little bit helps when you’re this much in the red.

* * *

“It was like that one scene in  _Casino Royale_ ,” the woman mused, “One hand of hold-em.  I had to go all in, every penny I had, in order to win you.”

John blinked.  

“Which was twenty-three pounds fifty and a euro coin.  I really don’t carry much cash with me nowadays.  Plus I was cheating so it didn’t matter.  There’s paracetamol and a cup of tea on the table to your right, if you like.”

John looked, and chased the two pills with a swig of tea.  It was piping hot Earl Grey, and eased the roughness of his throat.

“Thank you.  It… it really wasn’t very professional of me, was it?”

“Well, no,” the woman agreed, “But considering that before you and I left Doctor Fitzgerald was showing us all how he can propeller his penis I think that your having a few too many and needing a bit of a sleep won’t really make it onto the ‘nonprofessional’ charts.”

John squinted.  It was a big practice, and he hadn’t yet gotten to know all the other doctors, but…

“Doctor Fitzgerald,” he asked slowly, “He’s got to be sixty-five, hasn’t he?”

“If he’s a day.   _Eppur si muove._ ”

“Sorry?”

“It’s what Galileo said when he had to recant his theory that the earth revolves around the sun.”

“What does it mean?”

“ _And still it moves._ Eventually there  _will_  be a sexual harassment lawsuit or a wrongful death and then these parties won’t be  _quite_  so much like the decline and fall of the Roman Empire but that day is not yet arrived and you, at least, were a perfect gentleman.”

“Well that’s a relief.”

“Though you  _were_ a bit handsy afterwards.”

* * *

The mini-cab took forever to get there, which was probably to the good, since Doctor Watson was sobered up a bit by the cold air outside.  He still was weaving where he stood, so Mary slung his arm around her shoulder, which was probably dumb, since it would just mean both of them fell instead of one.

He smiled at her.  It was a sweet smile, though very whiskey scented from this close to.  

“You’re  _pretty_ ,” he whispered soakily into her face.

“Thank you,” Mary replied drily.  Without breaking eye contact, he gradually and slowly lifted up his free hand, almost seeming to wait for approval or confirmation, before carefully cupping her right breast.

Pity.  This was more action than she’d got in  _months_ , and under other circumstances he probably would deserve the nickname “Doctor Hotson.”  But of course if she went for it it would be lousy sex  _and_ one of those lessons they give to university students on the importance of the capacity for consent.

“No,” Mary said firmly.  He took his hand down right away.  Well-behaved, at least.

The mini-cab driver, when he deigned to turn up, was an elderly Romanian man and  extremely unexcited about having a drunk in his car.  Mary finally had to bribe him with her last twenty pound note and a display of the trash bag she’d bought along in case Doctor Watson  _did_ get sick.  Then another problem turned up when the driver asked them for a destination.

“I have no hoooome,” Doctor Watson said mournfully.  Mary rolled her eyes and wrapped her other arm around him so she could reach into his back pocket, ignoring his, “Oh, it’s all right for  _you_  to feel me up but when  _I_ do it it’s not on at all no sir.”

She got out his wallet, flipped through to his driving licence (’John’ Watson, apparently) and said, squinting in the streetlight to read it, “221… Baker Street, please.”

“NOT THERE,” John thundered, “I… I don’t live there any longer.”

“So where  _do_  you live?” Mary gently asked him.

“I… I… it’s a bedsit.  It’s crap.  I don’t remember the address,” he said, sounding lost.

Mary sighed.

“Right then.  In you pop,” she said briskly, “We’ll head over to mine.”

* * *

John shook his head, “God, I’m… I’m really sorry.  And sorry to crash here like this.  Thanks for your help.  I’ll just… grab my coat and shoes and head back to mine.”

“Um,” the woman said, frowning, “Where _do_ you live?  We couldn’t  _quite_  figure that out last night.”

“Croydon.”

“Oh.”

“What?”

“Cause this is Edgware. It’d be a good hour’s trip at the best of times, and it’s… Christmas morning.”

John noticed the tiny tree sitting on top of the table and mumbled, “Oh bugger.”

“No trains, no buses… and it’s going to be a bit before you can get a cab.”

 _A bit_ was an understatement. It was going to be ages  _and_  John was going to be out at least a hundred pounds by the time he got home.  Maybe he could walk over and wait in a nice quiet pub somewhere for a taxi… once the pubs opened.  Probably in about six hours.

The woman smiled.  She had a good smile, John noticed, a sexy smirk that he really wished he’d gotten out of her without his acting  _quite_  such the jackass.  

“Look,” she said, “I’ve got no plans so there’s no reason for you to freeze yourself to death out of good manners.  Have a shower and figure out what to do next once you’re feeling more human.  My ex left a set of trackies you can borrow if you want.”

* * *

Probably sane women, Mary thought, grimly slogging the fading Doctor Watson up the steps to her flat, did not bring strange drunk men back to their homes.  It seemed unwise as a general principle.   So either she was still rather mad, or just a terrible sucker.  

She poured John into her bed and tugged his shoes off.  Dragging the bin out of the bathroom, she pointed to it and said, “If you need to be sick, can you be sick in the bin?  In. The. Bin?”

He nodded, though Mary was deeply unsure of how well that’d work out.  She poured two glasses of water in her narrow kitchen, drank one off, and bought the other one back for John.

“I fucking hate Christmas,” he said, as she offered him the glass.

“Aw.  I’d hoped this was happy drunk,” Mary said. He ignored her, continuing on in his boozy declaiming.

“Last Christmas he was barely cold in the ground and this Christmas it’s like nobody even remembers he existed.  I thought I was doing better but I’m just… goddamn… stuck.”

Mary angled her head, and said, “That’s… rough.  Do you want to get under the blankets now?”

He did, apparently, drawing her duvet around his shoulders and smashing the side of his face into the pillow.  Mary set the water glass on the nightstand.

“You’re a very pretty girl, you know.  I like your bed.”

“It’s nice,” she agreed, before getting out a blanket and her pyjamas from the closet.  Too bad she’d be using the couch instead.

* * *

Showered and dressed in someone else’s soft clothes, John did actually feel more human, though a more floral-scented one than usual.  When he came out of the bathroom, the woman was setting plates of eggs and toast on the table.

She’d cut his toast into soldiers, and for some weird reason the thought, “She’d be a good mother” skimmed across his mind.

“This is really nice of you,” he ventured.

“Well, I  _was_  planning on a terribly pathetic single girl’s Christmas, so this is a bit of a disruption.  Don’t worry about it.”  There was that switchblade of a smile again.  She hesitated, then said, “Last night… you said something.  You’ve lost someone.”

“Did I?” John asked.  Christ, he must have been  _hammered_.  “I mean, yeah, I did.”`

She angled her head curiously, and she had the sort of face that you wanted to tell things to, so he did.

“Ever hear of Sherlock Holmes?”

He was honestly expecting the answer to be “no.”  Sherlock’s fame had been fleeting.  But the woman frowned and said, “The detective, right?  Who faked his cases?”

“He didn’t fake a damn thing,” John replied levelly, though there had been no malice in her question.  

“Oh, and he…um,” she was clearly remembering, “He fell.”

“Yeah.”

“And he was your boyfriend?”

Mistaken as gay again, he hadn’t missed _that_ much.  

“No, he was my _best_  friend.  I like  _women_.”

Yeah, he was not imagining it.  She was pleased about that last bit.

“It’s just… it’s a rough time of year for me.”

“I get that.  When I was younger, I had these three friends.  Alex, and Jay, and Gabe.”

She chuckled wistfully.  

“We called ourselves the three musketeers.  Because there’s _four_ of them, get it, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan?  And then about five years ago all of them died.”

“Jesus.  All at once?”

“Yeah.  Car crash.”

* * *

What the _hell_  was the matter with her?  She did  _not_  tell people even edited versions of the truth about her past life.  John had the sort of face you wanted to tell things to, but that was absolutely no excuse.

Mary smiled lamely and tried to deflect with a, “Sorry.  I know that comes off as sort of ‘let me try to outcompete you in the pain Olympics.’”

“There are no winners in the pain Olympics,” John said wryly, “No, I didn’t take it that way.  But you get it, then?”

And she did.  The time of year when you’re supposed to be with the people you love reminds you forcibly of the ones who aren’t there to spend it with you.

“I do.”

There was a silence.  But it was an oddly comfortable one.  Then John plucked at the leg of his sweatpants and asked, “So I have to ask… dead guy’s clothes?”

“I imagine that someday somebody _will_  murder David, if only to shut him up, but for the moment he’s alive and well.”

“And then I want to get your name, so I can ask you to dinner sometime.  Where I won’t get drunk.”

He raised three fingers in the Boy Scout salute, and Mary grinned and said, “It’s Mary.  Mary Watson.”

Oh GOD.

“Oh, that’s a coincidence-” John started but Mary interrupted him with a “Fuck.  It’s Morstan.  Mary  _Morstan_.  And I have no chill  _at all_.”

“I like a girl with no chill,” he said, with a smile that could make you go weak in the knees.

“Since I own you now,” she said, “If you’d like… you could stick around.  We can have our pathetic and sad Christmases together.”

John picked up a forkful of eggs.

“There are worse beds to wake up in.  Sure."


	16. I love you (Sherlock/Molly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A deleted scene from "One Inch to the Right," written for the I Love You Anniversary celebrations on January 15.

Sherlock slept for fourteen hours after Sherrinford.  Not right after.  The two of them had a conversation, she got let back into her (explosives-free, yay!) flat, she took a painkiller (well, she got told to have a bowl of cereal and then got to have her painkiller, opioids on empty stomachs are not for amateurs, Molly), and then they went to bed.

It was… beyond bizarre, to be getting into bed With Sherlock Holmes like you’d get into bed with anybody else.  Not in a fit of passion, not in some sad mutually-repressed cuddle-buddy angstfest, just… the casual “this is my person, and as such we sleep in the same bed.”  

Four hours later Molly woke up, and tried to get up, but was impeded by the iron-bar arm across her belly. She pushed at him, and only got a “Nnnnnnrgh,” from the overheating consulting detective wrapped around her.

“Sherlock, I need to pee,” Molly grumbled.  She could feel the curve of his smile against her shoulder blade, and a mumbled, “Kinky.”

But he let her go, and she went.  When she came back, he wrapped himself back around her and they slumped together off to sleep.

The next time she woke up he had gone limp and she was able to escape and start cleaning up her destroyed flat.  Molly wondered if it would actually have been any more trashed if his mad sister had really blown it up.  Certainly the Metropolitan Police had done enough damage.

Molly tidied.

She made and ate a meal.

She got some texts from the various Watsons.

And then there was a shuffling sound.  She tried not to tense up, worked on putting the books back in order on the shelves.  

Sherlock ambled out, sticky-eyed and wearing nothing but boxer briefs.  When he saw her he smiled and Molly’s heart cramped all up, like she was going to die and she wouldn’t even mind.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” Sherlock said, in equally gravelly tones.

 “Did… did you want something to eat?”

His hair was mad and wild.  His face was slightly crumpled on the right side from the pillows, and when he smiled it was the loveliest thing Molly had ever seen.  Slowly, cautiously, he took her back into his arms.

“Not even a bit.”


	17. Sisters (gen)

People believe all sorts of weird things about twins, and they aren’t really true, at least not for us. We were friends, we got along, but despite technically being clones we weren’t… _hugely_ sympatico. I never felt pain when she got hurt, she never could sense my emotions better than anyone else could, none of that stuff.

(Though for a while when we were six we did make a habit of staring at people and speaking in perfect unison, which was easier for us than I think it might have been for most. There’s video of this, and it’s really is creepy. But that was mostly a ploy to force our mother to stop dressing us identically.)

We got older and more and more different. I was the normal one: college, law school, marriage. My sister was the wild one, the adventuress, and she followed our stepdad into the murky intelligence world.

Regardless, we were still sisters. When my marriage went as wrong as any marriage can go wrong she rented me a condo under an assumed name, sent literal hired goons over to fetch my stuff, and made a lighthearted (but I believe sincere) offer to have my husband disappeared. When her job went as wrong as jobs could go I called in favors from every shady doctor I’d defended and hid her in a makeshift hospital in my spare room.

So when our stepfather came to me, grey faced and bleak, and said that a job had gone even wronger than that, and she wouldn’t be coming home from her last mission in Tblisi… I didn’t quite believe him.

Because you’d have to feel that, right? If your twin was really gone? And now it was just you?

Anyway she sent me a postcard three months later so I was right about that, but I never spoke to her again, not for six more years.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t hear from her, though she didn’t make it possible to reply. Occasional letters, with the outer envelopes in strange handwriting and postmarked from strange lands. Short messages encoded in the first sentences of spam emails. A photograph of her… well, obviously, it could pass for me, so I kept it… and a sandy-haired man in formal wedding attire. A wisp of dark hair tied with a thread, so fine and soft it could have been a kitten’s, if it had not been for the tiny human footprint in black ink in the same envelope.

And then finally, very late one night, a phone call.

“Vi, it’s me,” she began. Her voice was cracked and painful, and her breaths between sentences rasped, “I need something.”

“Yeah, of course, Rose, what is it?” I said. Because we're sisters. As I rooted around blindly on the nightstand for my glasses, she continued:

“Everything’s gone wrong… I. God, they think I’m _dead_. I need you to help me. I need you to help my family.”

Later that morning, I boarded a plane bound for Heathrow. In my pocket, a slip of paper, carrying three names.

_Rosie. John. Sherlock._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just saying, Rosamund and Violet Hunter would be excellent names... for secret twins.


	18. Date night (John/Mary)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt by marcceh at tumblr: "So I just saw a gifset of that moment where theyre talking about discovering Mary was an assassin and John’s all I didnt know!! and she’s all um yeah you did
> 
> And now I want to see like, scenes from when they were dating and it’s super obvious she has a sketchy bg and she keeps having to take out people during dates and johns just really intensely oblivious about the whole thing"
> 
> Contains swearing.

_John_

Despite what everybody thought he wasn’t really  _that_  thrilled by violence.  But the kid was obviously strung out and scrawny and it was their  _first_ bleeding date.  Therefore so as not to strike her as an unimpressive wanker, when the shortcut they took ended in a mugger with a knife saying, “Gimme your wallet,” he ignored Mary’s murmured, “John-" and stepped protectively in front of her and told the kid to fuck off.

Which is why it was unfortunate that there was another one of them hiding in the shadows who clocked him in the head with a bat.  

John woke up a few minutes later, slightly dazed, mainly worried.  Because Mary was a nice gentle nurse and had no idea how to handle this sort of thing. 

Happily, his head was cradled in her lap, and there was no sign of the mugger.  John tried to sit up, but Mary pressed gently on his shoulders, and said, “Hush.  It’s okay.”

“Where’d he go?” he mumbled.

“You must have scared him off,” she said absently.

It took a long time for him to remember that the muggers had been a “them,” not a “him.”  And he never noticed the faintly wiggling tarp-covered bundle behind the nearby skip.

 

_Mary_

“For FUCK’s sake,” she said, repeatedly kicking amateur mugger #2 squarely in the ribs, “He’s CUTE and he didn’t ONLY talk about himself and he’s YET to send me a dick pic it was REALLY a nice time and we were PROBABLY going to go to second BASE later you little junkie DOUCHEBAG.”

She dug some zipties out of her purse (old habits died hard) and tied his wrists and ankles and dragged him next to his buddy under the filthy tarp, before attending to her concussed date.

Honestly, Mary thought, this city. Everything had to be so dramatic.

(She had no idea.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few other people have written bits on the original post, which is here: https://marcceh.tumblr.com/post/173868460685/so-i-just-saw-a-gifset-of-that-moment-where-theyre


	19. Golly what a day (Mary/John)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally from a 5-sentence prompt by rooneykmara: Warstan, of course:) Archery.

“You… you  _pervert._ ”

“I’m not a  _pervert,_ I was  _seven_ ,” Mary exclaimed, blushing, “He was just so… debonair and charming and brave and I really fancied his English accent.”

“Being an Anglophile doesn’t get you off from the fact that your first crush was on  _Robin Hood,_ ” John said sternly, “And not even the Kevin Costner or the Russell Crowe ones,  _the cartoon fox._ ”

He sighed.

“I don’t know.  Retired assassin, shot my best friend, and now… furry.”

“Are you having fun, John?” Mary asked archly.

“More than I could have possibly imagined.  Though I will say… I took two terms of archery when I was at school.  And this  _is_ my real accent.”

“You might be cute as a ginger,” Mary mused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you would like to read the M-rated smutty sequel to this, it's on my tumblr. 
> 
> http://theemptyquarto.tumblr.com/post/175083893739/warstan-of-course-archery
> 
> Based on the reply by gettingovergreta, who said, "periodically John walks up and whispers in her ear ooh-de-lally"


	20. Railway Madness (Sherlock/Molly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one started off when cumbercougars posted a link to a description of the Victorian belief that the high speeds of rail travel could cause insanity. Then mizjoely added a note that they also thought the speed of the train could cause the forcible expulsion of the womb. And o0katiekins0o then postulated "train sex because they're worried they're both going crazy and her womb will fall out?"
> 
> So yeah, that's this one. Vaguely smutty though still well within the confines of the "T" rating, pure crack.
> 
> ETA: JULY 16 2018. There's a new bit on the end of this chapter.

“I HAVE TO PROTECT MOLLY’S WOMB!” Sherlock slurred.  _Extremely_  loudly.

John muttered, “Is that what the young couples are calling it these days,” made an apologetic smile to the rest of the passengers, and slung Sherlock’s arm over his shoulders. With great difficulty he got the inebriated consulting detective down the train’s narrow corridors to the tiny room that (he sighed) he’d been  _planning_  to share with his wife.

Using all appropriate gentleness (so not that much) he shoved Sherlock backwards until his knees hit the mattress and he sat. Blinking blearily up at John, Sherlock whispered loudly, “It’s science. She’s suffering from railway madness. Next step in the disease is expulsion of the womb.”

“It’s not… _railway madness_ , it’s a boatload of Devil’s Foot root. Frankly you’re both lucky to be alive. Molly will be fine. Mary’s taking care of her while it wears off.”

A slow grin began creeping over Sherlock’s face, and John rolled his eyes.

“Not like that.”

“I wouldn’t have minded a bit,” Sherlock said, thinking about it, “I know I don’t, generally… but to save her I would.”

“I realize that. So did everyone in second class. Speaking of which, do up your trousers.”

“I’m very high minded about this sort of thing, you know. Even though she’s got lovely soft hair and the most pert little pair of-“

John harrumphed loudly and said, “Yes, well… judging by the show she put on I doubt she’d object. But maybe try asking her to a tea shop or something first.”

 

* * *

Molly was still giggling as she sat on her bed.

“All right, my dear, let’s get your boots off,” Mary said coaxingly, “Can you undo your waist?”

Mary hiked Molly’s foot into her lap and started unknotting her shoelaces as Molly’s fumbling fingers started on the buttons of her blouse.  Fortunately Mr. Surprisingly Publicly Ardent had already gotten three of them off.

“Whoopsy,” Molly grinned as a fourth one, loosened by  _attentions_ , came off in her fingers, “I saw Sherlock’s  _truncheon_.”  
  
“Yes, dear, we all did,” Mary laughed.  John was never going to let Sherlock live this one down… and frankly Mary was looking forward to acting as his helpmeet in that, as a dutiful wife ought.

In a lightning-quick shift of mood, Molly’s face crumpled and she flung herself facedown into the flat railway pillow and began sobbing.  Mary rubbed her back.

“Molly, what’s wrong?”

“I  _lied,_ ” Molly wailed, her voice muffled, “I lied to Sherlock.”

Mary had what she knew was an unusually casual attitude towards lying, but since she was working to correct that, she didn’t say, “Well sometimes that’s more efficient,” which was her first thought.  Instead she gently asked, “About what?”

Molly flopped onto her back, tears running down her face.

“When he said, “The speed of the train may cause forcible ejection of the womb from the body,” I said, “Dislocation of the womb is one of the causes of hysteria.  Perhaps if we try a remedy for  _that_  then I may yet live?”

“Ah,” Mary said.  So that’s how  _that_  had happened.

“It was a pure lie.  The ‘wandering womb’ was disproved a hundred years ago.  The uterus is held in place with suspensory ligaments, and I’m only thirty two and haven’t had any babies, it’s not going anywhere.   _And_  hysteria is a  _mental_ illness, you can’t treat it by pelvic massage or any of that nonsense.”

“There’s a quack in Stonecutter Street who claims otherwise.  But really, Molly, I’m fairly sure Sherlock knows-”

“All I wanted was a  _bit_ of pelvic massage,” Molly moaned, “Is that so wrong?”

“Don’t we all,” Mary chuckled.

* * *

 

The train arrived in Constantinople on schedule, very early in the morning, and dawn’s light glittering off the Bosphorus was like being stabbed in the eyeballs.  Cocaine had  _nothing_  on Devil’s Foot root, Sherlock thought sourly.

The Watsons were off somewhere, arranging the retrieval of the baggage in the most smug and superior manner possible, when Molly Hooper came up to him on the platform and said, quietly, “Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock doffed his hat, and replied, “Doctor Hooper.”

She was pale but composed, and Sherlock couldn’t help but notice how lovely she was… how lovely she  _always_  looked when she wore women’s clothing instead of her normal disguises.  

_She’d look a lot lovelier wearing nothing at all,_  the Watson in his mind sniggered,  _Remember how she looked with those skirts all up about her waist?_   Sherlock frowned, and had mind-Mary slap John on the shoulder and growl,  _Do better._

“I…” he hesitated, “I cannot express my apologies enough for my behavior last night.  To have taken advantage-”

Molly interrupted him with a, “No, no apologies are necessary.  I… was equally susceptible to the influence of the drug, and my behavior was equally inappropriate.  We certainly wouldn’t have done such a thing under any ordinary circumstance.”

_Except that the things we do while intoxicated are the things we secretly want to do while sober,_  Mind-John murmured.

_He’s right,_ Mind-Mary agreed,  _You have one chance here, Sherlock.  Possibly your last._

“Indeed,” Sherlock said, “However, it did occur to me that… were you amenable, and of course with all due respect and in all clarity of mind, with full sobriety, that, in the fullness of time, perhaps you and I might have-”

He hesitated, just long enough for Molly to say, “Sex?”

“Tea,” Sherlock finished. 

“Or tea,” Molly said, flushing a vivid crimson.

“Or in fact sex,” Sherlock hastened to add.

Molly cocked her head and looked up at him quizzically.  Slowly, slowly, a smile crept about her mouth.

“Perhaps…” she ventured, “We could try tea first.”

Sherlock replaced his hat on his head, and extended an elbow for her to take.  

“I’m told the Pera Palace does a good brew-up.  Shall we?”

“Don’t you have a case, Mr. Holmes?”

“Sod the case.  It can wait.”

 


End file.
